⚖ Oral Arguments, with Context

The United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit hears oral argument in Flor versus Board of Regents of the University of New Mexico. The appeal arises from a sexual harassment investigation at the university that ended in a one-year suspension for a tenured professor. The investigation was conducted by the university's Office of Equal Opportunity under its internal sexual misconduct policy, known as Policy Twenty Seven Forty. The factual backdrop involves mutual complaints. The professor complained against a graduate student; she filed a quid pro quo harassment complaint against him, alleging he leveraged a job offer. The two had exchanged thousands of messages, which the university's investigation described as sexually explicit. The university found against the professor and imposed the suspension. The district court granted summary judgment against him, and he appeals. He argues the process was tilted: that the office presumed his conduct was unwelcome because of the professor-student power differential rather than analyzing it, and that men accused before this office fare systematically worse. The university responds that the outcome turned on the power differential, not gender; that unlike the case law the professor relies on, this record is documentary rather than he-said-she-said; and that he received extensive process. The panel also pressed a threshold question: whether Title Nine provides a private right of action for employment discrimination by a professor at all, a question the appellant conceded she had no case supporting. The core issues are whether summary judgment was properly granted on the Title Nine claim and on procedural due process.

Flor v. Board of Regents of the University of N.M. (No. 25-2112) — U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, argued July 31, 2026.